BIOMARE WORKPACKAGE 2 REPORT
Period: November 2000 – June
2001
1. The WP2 questionnaire (Preview)
2.1. Measuring marine biodiversity
2.2.
Species considered as
"key-species"
2.3. Stressors of the marine biodiversity
2.5. Bioindicators and biomonitoring
3.1. Remarks about the questionnaire:
3.2.
Results of the working group
discussions
Methods for assessing marine
biodiversity
The key descriptors of biodiversity
Some remaining comments or
questions
A question of time scale and of
spatial scale
The WP2 objective is to meet the need to detect
significant changes in the marine biodiversity using standardised methods at a
regional or European level. Two different steps are proposed:
· First year : make
an inventory of internationally agreed standardised and normalised measures and
indicators for marine biodiversity
·
Second year : propose a grid of indicators
for monitoring programs of marine biodiversity in Europe (including large-scale
and long-term).
A
questionnaire has been made to make an inventory and
evaluate the relevance of different types of indicators available in Europe
(including bioindicators or sentinel organisms, biological indices and
biomarkers), their recommendation by national rules and their use within
national monitoring network in order to identify the main causes, the rate and
extent of biodiversity loss or evaluate the benefit of the implementation of
protective or remediative measures. A wide range of indicators is necessary in order to consider the fourth levels of
biodiversity: the genetic diversity, species diversity, community or ecosystem
diversity and finally the sea-(land)scape diversity.
Questions relate to the methods (sampling, recording, assessment) of defining and measuring marine biodiversity and for monitoring at various spatial and temporal scales. A special attention must be paid to rapid assessment techniques (e.g. rapid ecological assessment or side-scan for landscape diversity) and specific surveys of species considered as “key-species” for marine biodiversity. Among the species of a region, “key-species” are those that contribute to the architectural, trophic and functional complexity of a marine ecosystem. This includes taxa of great heritage value as for instance : rare, endemic, threatened, biogenic building, keystone or emblematic species.
Composition and organisation of the ocean's flora, fauna and habitat
change under the effect of climate and of human activity. Questions within this
inventory relate to factors that have an impact on marine biodiversity. A
special attention is given to factors involved in deep modifications of marine
communities, mass mortality events, genetic diversity loss or development of
modified genetic strains of aquatic organism (e.g. alien species invasion,
climate change, etc.). To establish
causal relationships between stressors and biological effects at different
levels of organization, we
must set up a combination of indicators including biological tools from the
molecular to the ecosystem level, physical chemical parameters and social
economical data. According to the definition of different types of indicators and
bioindicators of interest for this survey, participants must give information
about the descriptors recommended by their national rules and the usual
bioindicators developed for surveying marine biodiversity. The threshold levels
must be well known, as well as the existence of baselines and links with
ecologically relevant endpoints, especially for measurement of stressor effects at low levels of biological
organisation (sub-cellular to organism).
The questionnaire has been sent to the steering committee members’ approval by the end of December 2000. After some technical problems, it has been put on-line on the web by the end of January 2001, permitting thus an automatic transfer of the submitted information to a database. The system has broken down just before the first regional meeting in April, the questionnaire becoming once again available on the web by the end of June. Between April and June, several corrections resulting of the regional meetings’ discussions have been made both on the text and the form of the questionnaire. A maximum of answers is expected by the end of September in order to prepare a first state of the art for the BIOMARE plenary workshop to be held in the Balearic Islands, Spain, on November 2nd and 3rd.
Before
the two regional meetings in Sopot and Corinth, 21 questionnaires have been
filled-in: 2 concerning the Baltic Sea, 7 the North Atlantic and North Sea, 12
the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Table I : first inventory of the replies to the questionnaire
|
N° |
Biogeographic
sector |
Country |
Contact |
|
1 |
Atlantic |
Ireland |
J.G. Wilson |
|
2 |
Atlantic |
United Kingdom |
R. Warwick |
|
3 |
Atlantic |
France |
C. Amiard-Triquet |
|
4 |
Atlantic, Channel, North Sea |
United Kingdom |
J. Foster Smith |
|
5 |
Atlantic, North Sea |
United Kingdom |
P. Ducrotoy |
|
6 |
Baltic Sea |
Finland |
E.
Bonsdorff |
|
7 |
Baltic Sea |
Finland |
E. Sandberg-Kilpi |
|
8 |
Black Sea |
Turkey |
A. Kideys |
|
9 |
Black Sea |
Ukraine |
N. Milchakova |
|
10 |
Mediterranean |
Slovenia |
A. Maleij & L. Lipej |
|
11 |
Mediterranean |
France |
C. Amiard-Triquet |
|
12 |
Mediterranean |
France |
T. Perez & J. Vacelet |
|
13 |
Mediterranean |
Italy |
V. Lupo |
|
14 |
Mediterranean |
Greece |
N. Simboura |
|
15 |
Mediterranean |
Greece |
C. Arvanitidis |
|
16 |
Mediterranean |
Greece |
? |
|
17 |
Mediterranean |
Greece |
N. Simboura |
|
18 |
Mediterranean |
Greece |
N. Simboura |
|
19 |
Mediterranean |
Greece |
S.
Orfanidis |
|
20 |
North Sea |
Germany |
W. Greve & F. Reiners ? |
|
21 |
North Sea |
Scotland |
P.G. Moore? |
Answers
are sometimes incomplete but they can be modified on-line from the new opening
questionnaire form.
There are several basic comments:
Information about rapid assessment methods are very few. “Feeding indices”(of functional diversity) in Mediterranean and the use of taxonomic distinctness based on presence/absence data rather than quantitative ones in Atlantic have been introduced for assessment of marine diversity in different ecosystems. On the other hand, side-scan surveys seem to be useful for studying the habitat diversity, or the extension of a given system (e.g. Posidonia meadows).
To
the question: “does an inventory of the marine patrimony exist in the
biogeographic sector considered?”, the majority of answers are “YES”. The
marine species and habitats of natural heritage seem to be at least partially
inventoried in France, Italy, Greece, UK, Slovenia, Germany. The protected
species listed by the Berne Convention should be all considered as key species.
Some of them have been cited within the replies:
Table II : species cited as “key-species” for a given biogeographic
sector.
|
|
Species |
Sector |
Type (rare,
endemic, keystone, threatened, biogenic building, emblematic) |
Known stressors |
|
Phanerogams |
Zostera marina |
Baltic Sea,
Black Sea, Med |
Keystone,
rare |
Eutrophication,
turbidity |
|
Posidonia oceanica |
Med |
keystone |
Eutrophication,
pollution, turbidity, etc. |
|
|
Ruppia maritima |
Med |
threatened |
Eutrophication,
pollution, turbidity, etc. |
|
|
Zostera noltii |
Med |
builder |
Eutrophication,
pollution, turbidity, etc. |
|
|
Cymodocea nodosa |
Med |
builder |
Eutrophication,
pollution, turbidity, etc. |
|
|
Macroalgae |
Lithothamnium coralliodes |
Atlantic |
threatened |
Fishing,
eutrophication |
|
Ranunculus baudotii |
Baltic Sea |
keystone |
Eutrophication |
|
|
Fucus vesiculosus |
Baltic Sea,
North Sea |
keystone
constituent |
Eutrophication,
pollutants, turbidity |
|
|
Phyllophora nervosa |
Black Sea |
keystone |
Eutrophication |
|
|
Cystoseira crinita |
Black Sea |
keystone |
Eutrophication |
|
|
Cystoseira spp. |
Med |
threatened |
Eutrophication,
pollution, turbidity, etc. |
|